‘Reset Your Preconceptions’ Program with the FirePro V5700 and SolidWorks -  review #4

The next evaluation has been published in the AMD “Reset Your Preconceptions” program for SolidWorks.  This is a unique program where where active, professional SolidWorks users are sent a FirePro card to try out in their everyday working environment.  Nothing is asked of them other then to share their experiences - be they good, bad, or indifferent.

As I’ve noted before, all of the benchmarks or reviews you read in online new sites are only one metric -  one data point, when evaluating which graphics accelerator is right for you. The real test comes when cards are evaluated in real working environments - without any restrictions or marketing spin control.  That is the goal of the Reset Your Preconceptions program.

The latest reviewer to publish is SolidWorks user Richard Williams. Below is a summary from his post:

”…/… Whether it was movements or animations, dark or bright, multi-colored or plain, reflective or direct lighting, it just could not have been better or smoother in this writer’s opinion.  Nothing I did was jumpy at all and it didn’t stall even once.  I now know what my next graphics card is going to be, so it can do all those things I know that are possible now.  I will give it my stamp of approval here and I know it beats anything we have here in the home lab right now.  I knew the ATI people would not send us out a system unless they were pretty confident about it and now I am.  Bye for now.”

This makes the forth reviewer to write up their experiences.  The full list to date is:

• Richard’s SolidWorks Blog (note: Richard’s post is a MS Word file, so I have created a PDF version if you can’t read .doc files)
• Anna’s SolidMuse blog
• Rob Rodriguez.Com
• Jeff’s Tool Shed

I’ve said it before, but this kind of real world testing is what I wish more companies would actually do.  Everyone always spins things in their press release benchmarks, picking out the tests that are strongest for their cards.  This ‘no-constraints on the user’ program by AMD is the kind of thing we need to see more of, so we can make more informed decisions.  In the future I would love to see the CrossFire Pro tested like this real world environments by real users.